Chapter 22- Good Harvest
From the twisted, cratered remains of the pigman’s skull, a single blue XP orb rose with a faint shimmer. A few clinks followed as gold coins spilled from the corpse like morbid confetti. They barely rolled before freezing mid-air and shooting toward Yuuta, sucked into his frog chest like they were being vacuumed up by some greedy void inside him.
A familiar chime rang out in his head:
[XP Increase: Level 5 — 0.8% Progress]
[+10 Gold Coins]
Yuuta nodded with a smug tilt of his frog head. "At least that pig had some worth in the end," he muttered, stretching his limbs like someone cooling down after a full workout session. His gangly green body cracked and popped as he reached for the sky, letting out a satisfied croak. "What a fucking session."
With a sigh, he resumed his careful, nimble shuffle across the rock-littered canyon floor. Sharp stones and shattered rubble still covered most of the terrain, and after that one bastard of a pebble jabbed his toe earlier, Yuuta wasn’t taking any chances. He stepped with the caution of a bomb squad, eyes flicking toward each step like the ground might attack him again.
Gold coins continued flying into his chest every now and then, trailing behind him like tiny gold groupies. Yuuta barely acknowledged them. "Still don’t know where the fuck those go," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "Are they in my stomach? My soul? My imaginary frog wallet?" He let out a dry, annoyed laugh. "If I find out I’ve been sitting on treasure this whole time with no way to use it, I swear I’m gonna headbutt a mountain."
He moved toward the other side of the collapsed path—the direction he originally entered from, back when the pig army chased him like a damn pack of discount warthogs on parade. That felt like hours ago, but the burn in his legs said otherwise. Every step over rock, every careful dodge to avoid stubbing a toe, made it all the more satisfying when the XP orbs twitched and zipped into his chest thanks to that handy little [Magnet] skill.
Little blue orbs—scattered like candy in the dirt—glimmered one by one as they launched themselves into him with soft pops. He walked and collected, walked and collected, like some weird frog version of a kid on an Easter egg hunt with PTSD and a thirst for revenge.
Yuuta tried not to get his hopes up, but with every orb that disappeared into his body, his confidence swelled just a little.
"Come on, baby. Get me to six. Gimme that new card. I wanna fuckin’ melt pig faces with fire or some shit."